I'm a young American woman in Milan...and you're not. I go to La Scala a lot...and you don't.

June 2007

June 23, 2007

OK, not exactly opera bu relevant nonetheless, and Opera Chic has a soft spot for the first transgender Congressperson in Italy's (and Europe's) history (the New Zealenders have already elected the first transgender member of Parliament EV4R111), the honorable Vladimir Luxuria (and, to be fair, with the exception of a shameful incident provoked by a center-right, Catholic colleague, Luxuria's tenure in Camera dei Deputati has been so far free of ugly incidents of discrimination, a credit to Italians and a testament to this very strangely Catholic nation, so easily outraged by smalltime stuff but also so basically tolerant at the same time).

Anyway the honorable Luxuria, a human rights activist and a former actress, after undergoing what seems to be a nice amount of plastic surgery (the old nose really HAD to go, girl) -- and pretty good surgery by Italian standards at that -- is now cranking up the awesome on stage, too, not just in politics.

Luxuria will appear tomorrow night at 930 PM in Trieste, at Teatro Romano, in a production of Euripides Helena, Giuseppe Rocca director and author of the translation into Italian.

June 22, 2007

The three big papers in Italy (Corriere, La Stampa, and La Repubblica) all reported a t0tally excited reception (10 minutes of applause –- but we’ll get to that later) for Robert Carsen's direction --> appropriation --> adaptation of Leonard Bernstein's Candide from the Wednesday, June 20 la prima at Teatro alla Scala. Don’t get us wrong. We liked many things about it: the witty tributes to cultural icons and shared historical legacy, the dying flicker of optimism and increasing commodification of American culture since the death of JFK, and the rise of the tacky and misguided nouveau riche. (yawnz0rs)

But by the end of the night, the audience is pushed into the role of a bemused parent battling the sudden onset of puberty of a confused and rebellious teenager. Carsen inelegantly slams his dogma and paints his social-commentary-couched-in-irreverent opinions in such broad strokes, that a few times OC found herself rolling her eyes to his modern citations ('does the audience like me yet?! I wont stop referencing our shared cultural history until I am liked.')

But Carsen’s production was equally brilliant compared to even the most tenuous parts: a brief allusion to Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot, complete with a saxophone-wielding cross-dressing Jack Lemmon as Maximilian, uttering the famous (ed: Joe E. Brown's in the original movie) line, "well, nobody's perfect". While I lolled, not one of the Italians near me uttered a single sound. And of course, Glitter and Be Gay was set to the iconic Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend, as Cunegonde is transformed into Marilyn Monroe in the 1953 film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. What we also respected from Carsen was the elegant handling of the inherent anti-war message, which was thankfully not foisted heavily into the structure of Carsen's moral edits, and rather delievered with wit and grace.

The stage, as you all have seen/read by now, is set inside a giant television from the 1950s with rounded rectangle frames, reminiscent of a giant vintage metal lunchbox. The opening credits are certainly brilliant enough, all in English in whimsical font, as well as the appealing nostalgic pastiche of stock footage, all taken from idealized, pastel, and frothy clips of happy American 1950s families -- panning the camera over white picket fences and brand new ranch homes, spliced with footage of the JFK wedding, a NASA space launch, etc...all saturated in a warm orange glow of nostalgia. However, Voltaire giving the audience the middle finger to signify the opening of Act I is a little too, well, *rolls eyes*.

But in the age of MTV and lightning-fast edits, OC found the overall production riddled with a bad case of ADHD *omg brb something shiny*! It was impossible to focus on the overture with the media presentation buzzing and flashing behind (there was also a similar presentation after the first intermission). The problem with this entire production is that Bernstein’s music and creation takes complete backstage to Carsen's self-laudatory, egotistical omg shared inheritance omg direction. He's like Orson Welles on crack. Carsen uses Lenny’s Candide as a vehicle to perpetuate his convictions and his own brand of heavy-handed social commentary, and to present his own, updated version of Voltaire’s novel. The music was a mere afterthought, a batch of stringed notes for the background of Carsen's direction. This was all in great contrast to the 2004 Candide OC saw in NYC, a love-fest hommage to Bernstein...where at one point in scene, an album of Lenny's West Side Story was used as a prop in tribute to the great maestro, the audience bursting out in applause.

The La Scala orchestra was completely incapable of getting down that fundamental, unique ,brash Lenny sound. They washed it entirely in their patented La Scala Italianate (duh) treatment -- although very beautiful and evocative in its own right -- but not even close. But then again, no one was really listening to the music rite? so who cares!

The final word on the cut scenes? As the legend goes *cue grandpappy voice*, it all began back in December 2006 when Stéphane Lissner took his adolescent son (note: OC isn’t a parent, but I prolly wouldn’t recommend this opera for 13-year-olds) to the December 26th Paris production at the Théâtre du Châtelet, and decided that Carsen's vision of Candide was "not in line with the artistic production of La Scala". Many meetings behind closed doors in January 2007 between Lissner and Carsen were held, where eventually they agreed upon a “Milan-Safe” version, cutting roughly 15-minutes of staging from the Paris version, including two songs of Dr. Pangloss (but hinted-at in the newspaper for reasons wanting to conserve Lamert Wilson’s voice. um okay yaaaah).

In the famous scene with Berlusconi, Blair, Bush, Chirac, and Putin floating drunkenly among split oil tanks (at la prima, two of those tanks had a ‘wardrobe malfunction’, and remained distractedly and ominously on stage ten minutes through the Las Vegas scene) Putin thankfully doesn't vomit (making instead very audible hiccups), and Berlusconi is dressed in longer briefs (instead of a little Speedo seen in Paris). The neckties of the five world leaders have been left in the dressing room, but that was explained for the reasons of new, improved masks that didn’t need the neckties to conceal the creases in the material.

No molesting, pAEdophile priests or priest/church jokes…specifically the line, "Farebbero comodo alla nostra confraternita" (but instead Dr. Pangloss grossly molests Paquette through a few scenes.) Also cut was the entire scene of the cardinals arriving in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Lots of cracks at the Mormons, however remained, upon Candide’s arrival in Salt Lake City, UT. Not many Mormons in Italia!

Dr. Pangloss/Voltaire/Martin, played by the excellent Lambert Wilson, narrates in Italian language (instead of English) marring the production with an ersatz and disjointed feel (Lissner had said that such long stretches of English would bore and lose the interest of the general audience). Even the last few lines in the ending scene uttered by Candide and Voltaire are spoken in Italian.

Appearing in scene, although reportedly once agreed to be cut by Carsen, was Kim Criswell’s Old Lady, who said she was the daughter of a Polish pope ("Sono figlia di un papa polacco") because I remember being like, 'oh great, here comes the Pole joke.

But can we just address the screaming headlines that state the Candide la prima received bountiful applause? Well, yes, technically there was roughly 10 minutes of applause. People liked it, yes. But whoever coordinated the curtain calls split-up the massive, massive chorus into much smaller sets of about 15 members, each line of chorus singers taking an isolated, separate bow. Technically and literally, because the chorus (ed: and the mimes and the dancers) was split into small bodies among such a large group, it took a very long time. When the principals finally came together with Carsen, Axelrod, et al, after the entire chorus had taken their like, 8 minutes of curtain calls, there was only *one* ovation for them. The curtain went down once, and was raised one additional instance for a final, second ovation. THIS CASE HAS BEEN OFFICIALLY CLOSED.

Now to make this monster post even more GINORMOUS, here are some more screenshots from the December 2006 Paris production, broadcast last January by Arté on satellite, not from La Scala's production:

Above: Dr. Pangloss's history lesson

Above: The chorus and the earthquake

Above: auto-da-fé with hanging of Candide and Pangloss. Oh yeah: And the KKK.

Opera di Roma General Manager Francesco Ernani has just published an article in the Rome newspaper "Repubblica" with a very interesting analysis on the state of financial (and political) crisis of classical music in Italy -- Opera Chic for example did not know that two thirds of graduates from Italy's glorious Conservatori are unemployed.

We are proud to say that Dr. Ernani (who received an MBA from an American university) and his wonderful staff at Opera di Roma has kindly provided Opera Chic with an English translation of his article, and Opera Chic is more than happy to publish it here.

The article by Bernardo Bertolucci on the newspaper Repubblica “Culture: the word forgotten by politics” has led me to reflect about how to construct the most complete picture of cultural politics and how to identify the priorities on which our Country must invest. To promote the necessary renewal of the live performing arts there are new draft laws to be approved by the Parliament. The Minister for the Cultural Assets has given to the social Parts a rough draft about a reform of the live performing arts to be presented to the Council of Ministers before the vacations, in order to open soon after the debate at the Houses of Parliament. The current organization of the Opera Houses structures is revealing incapacity to save both the image and the development of the offer of the cultural product of our historical Opera houses. In a climate of drecreasing consent, aggravated by befall legislative dispositions that have transferred outside a distorted vision of the artistic costs (connected to the international market) and of the cost of working, the state of degradation - with few exceptions - hasn’t been stopped yet. It seems to me that we are losing the consideration of the Opera world and its cultural fecundity and communication. Italy cannot afford to lose the benefits. Our Opera houses are not abstract realities: they are constituted of great professionalism, artists, musicians, singers, dancers, skilled stage and laboratories staff. They all pursue common purposes of particular social and cultural values. Attending Opera houses the artistic production is consumed and it is possible to verify that people with different tasks are well joined in realizing a model based not on the competition but on the realization of cultural values for “Music” and “Dance”. I feel myself to support, from my experience, that if you want to achieve the best working model for an opera house you must convince everyone to follow principles of collaboration, to feel the need of growing artistically and technically, to reach the aim to maintain and to improve the specific professional qualities. Instead, politics should assure the professional outlets for authors, executors, interpreters, for the students from the Conservatory of Music. It is evident the political lack towards the world of the performing arts. According to the CENSIS report dated November 2003, only the 30% of graduate student of the Conservatory of Music of the year 2002 are occupied. The 56.9% is looking for a job. It is therefore evident that we are not giving to people involved with classical music a “beam of confidence and poetry” that is so necessary for them. But it is much more serious that we are not able to enhance the social capital of the good and of the service that has to be generated by them. If you consider then that the Italian language is the language of Opera, it cannot be accepted that the musical life of our Country can lose important aspects of its universal meaning.

When Opera Chic arrived here in snarky Milano, she was kinda afraid that the moment she confessed her passion -- no, her fetish -- for the maestro Aaron Copland's music, all of it, and especially for that monument to American genius, Rodeo, she was afraid she'd be literally laughed off of all the cool parties circuit of the classical music loving peeps.

Instead.

Instead everybody here -- well, the cool ones -- at the mention of Opera Chic's love for Copland is all like "omfgwtf we were afraid to confess that to an American but Rodeo is teh awesome yay ypeeee111"

This week the Twin Cities' Metropolitan Ballet company is recreating de Mille's choreography for Copland's "cowboy ballet." Teaching dancers the original steps is Paul Sutherland.

Sutherland made his professional debut as a cowhand in a production of "Rodeo" in 1957 and a few years later was cast by de Mille herself in one of the lead roles as Head Wrangler.

Today, Sutherland is the only person authorized to stage Agnes de Mille's original choreography to "Rodeo." He estimates he's set it about 50 times since 1979.

It's music for the people, guys (and it makes us happy even when it's played like a$$). It's like barely-literate old peasants deep in the Valle del Po in Emilia understanding -- not to mention feeling -- Verdi better than many (most?) musicologists. And nevermind the beef ads, it's OK -- OC was appalled when she heard for the first time "Amami Alfredo" used here in a TV ad for tomato sauce, but then she got it, it's all good. It's music as sentimento popolare -- it's drunken rowdy 17th Century Englishmen going to see some new Shakespeare play the way their descendants now go to the soccer games. And maybe, well, it's even what many of those giants had in mind -- it's capturing the people's imagination and if it's less brainy than Berio, so be it.

Whenever Opera Chic reads something like celebrity opera singers complaining about "punishing schedules", or musicians ranting about jet-lag, she thinks of poor old maestro Gino Marinuzzi: in his letters, Opera Chic's favorite book like ev4r, he lamentates the VERY punishing schedule of a South American tour with, like, 7 performances a week, 8 sometimes, of two or three different operas.

And what about those adjustments that Robert Carsen worked-out with Stéphane Lissner to adapt his production for a Milan & Italy safe version? Tonight the caricature of Silvio Berlusconi was dressed in longer briefs, unlike at the Théâtre du Châtelet production where he flaunted speedos (see below). As we anticipated, he wore no tie. What you can see posted are vidcaps of the Arte' broadcast, last January, of the uncensored and uncut Paris production.

These Paris-Candide vidcaps show scenes that have been cut from la Scala's staging.

Opera Chic has been forbidden by la Scala's lawyers to publish Scala promotional material that is freely distributed to the media, so there will be no Candide at la Scala images here until tomorrow, when Italian law will allow us to reproduce, in fair use, pages of newspapers that have published those images.

whew!

Enjoy.

In Milan, swiftly axed from the production (about 15 minutes, 2 musical numbers and a lot of anti-Catholic Church jokes) was Candide's arrival into Santa Fe, New Mexico. Below, find the Théâtre du Châtelet production of Carsen's staging of Candide, (thanks to ARTE airing it this past January) which included the scene.

Why is the Vatican still so powerful here, that the Scala GM Lissner axed all the anti-Catholic content but kept the anti-Berlusconi shtick, thus enraging the very Milan city government that yearly endows la Scala with a fat donation?

In a few words, because the Church and the Catholic organizations are so powerful here that, when the (nominally) center-left central government led by Romano Prodi tried to pass a very mellow law allowing some form of protections to civil unions, straight and gay unions alike, the Church had successfully lobbied Catholic politicians to sink the government in a Senate vote (the government usually has a small majority there, but they magically lost it on that issue) and they sent ONE MILLION people to a demonstration in Rome, the awesomely named "Family Day", in English, to flex some bada$$ Catholic muscle.

Needless to say, the civil unions plan has been shelved indefinitely.

The Catholic Church also won big two years ago, sinking a referendum that would have given more leeway to stem cell research and in vitro fertilization (abortion, on the other hand, is still legal here...it is not clear for how long, though). And a recent "offensive" art exhibit in Bologna has created a big fuss, with the (leftist) city government withholding support to the artist and actually apologizing to the Church.

To sum it up: Scala GM Stephane Lissner is more worried by the Vatican's possible wrath than by Silvio Berlusconi's certain discomfort at being mocked on la Scala's stage. Lissner may be right, but Opera Chic is not so sure -- He lost about 2 million euros of Milan government funding anyway. And we doubt the Vatican is going to send him a thank-you note, much less a check for 2 cool mils.

First it was the NYC elementary school that thought it would be cool to do a biographical sketch in the very cemetery where Lenny’s body resides. Then Carsen took out his beat-down stick and whacked with all his might to create something simultaneously kind of laudable, but incomprehensibly *not* Bernstein’s Candide.

Herpes jokes, a grabby-hands Pangloss, Cunégonde as a “shiksa b*tch”, the immigrants to the New World referred to as, “wops, kikes, spics, [insert additional offensive slang here], and the KKK dancing a hoe-down. It’s like, okay Carsen, WE GET IT. I mean, just how many times can you hear "West Failure" (for “Westfalia”) before it gets old?! Yeah, um: 3x.

Amazingly, through all the racial slurs and barbs, Carsen had at least enough sense to not drop the n-bomb…but then again, even if he did, I don’t think the audience would have cared, as there was indeed a warm reception for Carsen’s antics at La Scala tonight. Lots of cheers when Carsen (wearing one of the most hideous -- dark purple and white striped -- suits I’ve seen in my entire life) came onstage to take his curtain call. A smattering of boos, but really just a miniscule dollop compared to the wild cheering. For the American experience, Carsen leaves one with a complete dichotomy of both nostalgia and embarrassment. Embarrassment for the egregious metaphors and couched social criticisms via an extremely altered libretto. Or as the La Scala flyer states, “Liberamente adattato da Robert Carsen”, freely adapted. "Liberamente adattato" my a$$. That was straight-up misappropriation.

Opera Chic didn't particularly like that Candide on TV, the opera was broadcast by Arté last January, because really, how tired it is to argue that TV is bad for you and that America has lost her optimism since JFK was murdered? that's just bOring! and makes Opera Chic (who usually loves Carsen's work) goes zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz with sleep. A gifted director, he may not be a politcal artist.

Anyway.

The latest news are:

* the scene with Berlusconi, Bush, Blair, Chirac and Putin (three of whom are now either out of office or on their way out, one has a below-zero approval rating and the other has been accused of murder on CNN by a dying, poisoned Russian ex spy) in their underwear has remained more or less untouched, only their neckties are missing

* all the satire against the Catholic Church ("I'm the daughter of the Polish pope!", lots of jokes about pAEdophile priests) has been carefully and completely deleted

* the show, 15 mins shorter than the Paris production, is still kinda lame

But then, Candide had never been staged at la Scala before. And Opera Chic will always love Lenny.

So off we go, in a few hours. We'll report on possible stirrings in the audience. So stay tuned later.

We're huge fans of Cincinnati, that most musical of cities -- the Orchestra that introduced Mahler 3rd and 5th to the American public, the orchestra once led by Thomas Schippers, that American genius, and frankly, we just like to say "Järvi" a lot.

OC also loves the Cincinnati Opera, with their clever performance descriptions (Gounod’s Faust is commodified as "devilishly good" = teh loals), their endearing opera-centric events (Opera Dogs = kawaii), and the tremendously baffling -- but awesome -- contact sheets for PR shots. We also have the highest respect for Opera Chic readers that come to us from the Greater Cincinnati home base, not to mention the lovely, endless comedy fodder when it comes to the craptastic legacy of the Cincinnati Reds and Mark Twain’s couched barbs. And we will always have a soft spot for the ambitious programs of the Cincinnati Opera, especially regarding a recent fundraiser...

On Thursday, June 14, an opening night cocktail, gala dinner and auction was organized by the Cincinnati Opera in celebration of this year’s 87th Summer Festival, followed by la prima of Charles Gounod's Faust. (and btw fyi memo to Gelb: We heard that Ruth Ann Swenson has been rawking the house with her performance of Marguerite, bravely appearing in the final act in her post-chemo, shorn hair sans wig.)

But the part that makes OC squeal in delight?: an auctioning-off of everyone’s favorite shirtless baritone, "that big lumberjack of a sek-say baritone," Teddy Tahu Rhodes (although lately he seems to be in a tie with Erwin Schrott’s London Don Giovanni among opera's h0rniest gourmets of sexy select cuts, we still think Teddy has an edge -- I mean those abs are just inhuman, and he also dripped oceans of testosterone all over the stage with his Streetcar performances, making it difficult for the other performers to negotiate that messed-up-floor).

At $100 per person, Artistic Director Evans Mirageas held the auction block mast at full attention. With items ranging from a Christian Dior makeover (which fetched $450) to a Tiffany & Co. pearl necklace (fetching $1,150), from a Kentucky Maker's Mark Distillery tour (a sweet, drunken $850) to a random supernumerary role for next season (a cool $750), there was only one item that made us giddy: While Mirageas himself fetched two winning bids of $2,500 with the promise of a home-cooked meal of his own design, the *real* winning bid of the evening (not in monetary value, but in super h0tt, pulsing, invisible currency) was a $1,400 dinner TBA with Teddy Tahu Rhodes at a restaurant PhoParis, described as “French cuisine with a Vietnamese accent”. More like "New Zealand home slice with a hotornot.com rating of 10." Or "10+++AAA would do dinner again!"

We haven’t heard yet if he is required to dine shirtless or not, but we’re guessing not, since the bidding would have gone up to like 100 million dollars if that was the actual stipulation.

June 19, 2007

omgomg August Austrian newspaper of record, Wiener Zeitung, will publish tomorrow a story by Stephan Burianek in its print edition (available already online here) about Die Bloggerin in Milan, Opera Chic. And we were all like: daayum!

We loved the mention of our Harnoncourt-snark, too! We are sooo printing this out and putting it on the fridge...right next to the 8x10 glossy of Alagna's inflamed uvula and the autographed Toscanini photo with the inscription "To Opera Chic con affetto!!!111!eleven11!"

*on a sidenote: we just realized that this is post no. 666 since we started this blog!!! omfg teh satan is here wtf!!! we're scawed now, we'll got to baed k nitebnite*

US tenor Neil Shicoff, who last month was overlooked for the position of director of Vienna's State Opera, has pulled out of Austria's renowned Salzburg Festival, organizers said Tuesday. In a letter to festival director Juergen Flimm, Shicoff said that, among other things, he needed a break to rethink his priorities and distance himself from «intrigues and disappointments.» A copy of the letter, written in German, was provided to media outlets by the festival organizers.(...)

The excitement in Turin is palpable (heh) for the premiere at Teatro Regio of Ernani (the official site is here, Creative Commons free-for-dload version of an old recording here), where Opera Chic heroine Daniela Dessì will unleash her beautiful voice (and her ginormous bewbs) in the role of Elvira; her tall dark handsum boytoy Fabio Armiliato will be the heart-stealing bandit, and our dear Bruno Campanella, very clearly the best Rossini conductor in the world right now and a he-ll of a solid Verdi conductor, will conduct the operations. The staging is by the always interesting Pier'Alli.

An interview with Campanella (who considers Ernani part of the belcanto repertorio and warns against the dangers of conducting the opera in too muscular a fashion, and he explains that the pianissimi are the key to the score) is here and one with Pier'Alli is here.

Armiliato: "Yes, of course, you enjoy your work more, the way the great showbusiness families of the past did"

Your partner's greatest quality?

Dessì: "His honesty"

Armiliato: "Her sweetness"

Your partner's not-so-great quality?

Dessì: "Can I say this? He snores a lot"

Armiliato: "I don't snore, I practice in my sleep".

The thing Italian opera houses need the most?

Dessì: "One-year-contracts for all..."

Armiliato: "Yes, with yearly auditions. Meritocracy is a guarantee of artistic quality".

***update***
Since Dessì mentions her Tosca, possibly her best role and certainly the one she's most famous for, here it is courtesy of YouTube. Consider that her interpretation is even more impressive than her plunging neckline here, and with that push-up costume that's saying quite a lot:

And since Fabio deserves his share of YouTube blav as well, here's his -- frankly, standing-ovation-worthy, dang! -- "Nessun Dorma". Also check out the YouTube comments for a funny digression on Fabio's famously abundant "knödel".

That's the first thing we thought when we read that, of all the people who could adapt Tirant Lo Blanc, that epic masterpiece, for the stage, the chosen one is the madman that is Calixto Bieito? Opera Chic was all like, wtf? Mutilated Moors? Holy gangbangs? How do you fist somebody who's wearing a body armor anyway? With a can opener?

It's one thing to set Macbeth in a mall from hell, with the secretaries drinking from that famous devilish cup, a Starbucks Grande (for the record: Opera Chic still misses her Starbux, yea, she knows that she lives in coffe country yeah, whatevah), and have poor Caroline Wishnant, that good solid soprano so often mistreated by her unflattering directors, wear some b00berriffic outfits to better stab, straddle and bleed to death her costars, OK. The Scottish play can take the abuse.

And yeah, a nutty Don Giovanni with Leporello in a red + blue azulgrana soccer jersey (for Calisto's beloved Barcelona) & Don Ottavio in a Superman costume, OK, it's a dramma giocoso so we'll pretend it's more giocoso than dramma anyway, and DaPonte was one horny bastard so the naughtier the better, k? maybe. Insane as he may look, and unlike some of his fellow bad boi directors, Calixto has been blessed (by Satan. clearly) with an uncanny sense of dramatic tempi, and a great eye, and a quick mind (nsfw gallery here).

Too bad that Entfuehrung in a whorehouse, with rapes and mutilation and urine-drinking to quench one's thirst for the sublime is just, simply, not the Entfuehrung anymore. (And dude, if you wanna be really controversial, really naughty, keep the Muslim-master caged-Christian-women theme -- don't wimp out of that. Show us it's not a shtick but you're a equal-opportunity provocateur).

Or if you really want to amputate women's nipples, just admit that you're doing your own thing (the Marquis de Sade did, he wasn't really staging Medea in a bordello with und3rage fisting and call it a Euripides play -- he did his own thang under his own name) and scores and libretti and music are just a pain, and you might as well get rid of them and stage your own versions of great operas as Bieito plays. Carmelo Bene did just that in Italy and it was a lot of fun. Nothing wrong with that.

But then, of course, there'd be no scandale. You'd be just another guy staging another loopy play ripping off Hamlet, with a guy in Albert Einstein makeup who goes down on Jenna Jameson as Ophelia, poolside in a San Fernando Valley McMansion as shot by Larry Sultan. (come to think of it, not a bad idea. copyright Opera Chic remember).

Because whenever Calixto manages not to lose his krap he's just spot-on:OC again thinks highly of his Wozzeck in Chernobyl, or his Rake's Progress in a fake dilapidated Disneyland. He could be one of the guys who save classical music from the 180,874 rerun of Zeffirelli's (otherwise lovely, but how many times can one see it?) Bohéme.

June 18, 2007

It's not the setup for a grody joke about a dream gangbang for skanky washed-up celebrities, but a sad possibility: are they all Kabbalah celebrity fans, the 4 of them?

Over at our big sister La Cieca 's there's a nice debate about how awesome Erwin Schrott is (well, about how awesome his abs are -- OC's take is that they're awesome but she still has a weakness for Teddy Tahu Rhodes's steel washboard abz -- maybe we could set up a barechested performance of whatever opera you want and have them fight each other with their abs as lethal weapons).

But the picture above, from a 2006 performance of La Damnation de Faust in Rome, Antonio Pappano conducting the hawtness of Schrott and Jonas Kaufmann, Vasselina Kasarova staring gloomily at all that male beefy hawtness obliterating her from the stage, seems to indicate that, isn't that a Kabbalah bracelet around Schrott's manly big thick wrist?

*****update*****

A source very close to Ervino illuminates us by assuring Opera Chic that this is not a Kabbalah bracelet but a regular red non-Kabbalah thingie.

According to Mercer Human Resource Consulting, Milan is steadily rising in the hawt chart of the word's most expensive cities, from no. 13 in 2006 to no. 11 now, beating to an inexpensive pulp those cheapos in NYC (slipping from 10 to 15 -- lamUrs!).

Because, really, Frengo slapped around even our dear Graham Vick and that just doesn't fly at OC's headquarters.

But then, today we heard that the Traviata that just premiered at the Opera Garnier in Paris -- conducted by the appalling Sylvain Cambreling -- has been designed by the director, Swiss professional provocateur (*yawn*) Christophe Marthaler, as a twisted hommage to Edith Piaf, with a pinch of hip-hop dance numbers sprinkled all over the party scene, too, just to be, you know, hip or something.

In an orgy of golden lamé dinner jackets and Cabaret-style neon signs, the gloomy progression of Verdi's opera is marked by Marthaler's concept -- "Violetta could be a pop-star, or a model... she belongs to the world of the VIPs", had explained Marthaler, betraying his fundamental confusion, or ignorance, about the actual heart of the opera, which is the relationship of the démi-monde with the power structure of the day -- and then the kicker: "She resembles Edith Piaf, a small woman with a great voice, who had many men but wasn't a prostitute. I've been inspired by Piaf's affair with Theo Sarapo". k.

Ottavio and Rosita Missoni remember "the sincere hugs we exchanged, the way old friends do. Our sorrow is intense".

vvvvvvvupdatevvvvvvvv

Gianfranco Ferré (above with you-know-who) is a figure well-known in the world of opera (regardless of the fashion-initiated), as having been Renée Fleming's dresser since 1998, using his vast couturier skills to make Renée flemerific. Ferré has dressed Renée in a wide spectrum of craptastic to elegant gowns, but has always kept us entertained with his overall elegant and feminine designs for la Renée (who also wears many of the late designer's creations off-stage).

Back on November 5, 2006, OC was guest at the Teatro alla Scala Renée Fleming recital, which was co-collaborated with Gianfranco Ferré. He not only dressed Renée for the performance (o welps have pictures to share...but u noes the drill), but also supplied gowns for a Ferré-hosted after-par-tay in his Corso Garibaldi/via Pontaccio #21 head office after the show, where Renée showed-off another one of his evening gowns.

Earlier that evening at the theater before Fleming took her bis, she graciously gushed from cue-cards in Italian that Ferré was 'un grande amico'. You can go here to the Opera Chic flickr photostream to see more images of Renée and Ferré at the after-party. Girl looked good...str8 hustlin that night. First tier grade A number 1.

Even for his aggressive standards, today's interview with Corriere della Sera (not online) is a masterpiece of snark: Franco "Frengo" Zeffirelli demolishes all other opera directors out there, except for Patrice Chéreau and Robert Carsen and Hugo de Ana, the only survivors after Frengo's verbal A-bombs have been dropped all over the place.

Let's see: his point that the current season of Arena di Verona is teh suck: he calls the seasons that will open with Nabucco conducted by Daniel Oren and directed by Denis Krief "a season of mindless renewal and of progressive extinction, shaped by the unsufferable modernist extravaganzas dear to German and British audiences. Nobody can stand those, except the critics. I have been told that the audiences now flee l'Arena; reservations are declining, especially reservations from abroad".

The list of Frengo's grievances is long; he has words of great appreciation for directors of the past, the great Giorgio Strehler, "the magnificent Ken Russell", but most of the important directors of recent years flunk the Zeffirelli test. Let's see.

Graham Vick? "Eccentric. Unable to tell Violetta's story and to give shape to that miracle of passion and emotion, he shifts the action to our era turning Violetta into a cheap Princess Diana... Please! You hear Di quell'amor, quell'amor che palpito and instead of creating a transcendent moment you resort to irony? No, musical theatre deserves to be loved and respected for what it is. Directors must serve the author's intent".

Luca Ronconi? "For heavens sake!"

Liliana Cavani? "Please..."

Ermanno Olmi? "Have mercy!"

Pier Luigi Pizzi? "A one-trick pony"

Mario Martone? Toni Servillo? "They're too green"

His opinion on Franco Zeffirelli? "Après moi le deluge. I say this with sadness".

Even if only a Howard Hawks or a Preston Sturges or a Billy Wilder would be able to properly convey the slapstick genius of that masterpiece that is Il Signor Bruschino, Gioacchino Rossini at his youthful silliest, the photos of this production of the opera, opening tomorrow in Rome, Daniele Abbado director, make Opera Chic happy.

Awesome find for all music lovers: Austrian musicologist Hildegard Hermann-Schneider has found in the archives of the Bressanone cathedral, in northern Italy close to the Austrian border, Mozart's manuscript score, from 1776, of his "Piccolomini" Mass, K258, with a few loose sheets of notations in Mozart's hand, and in his father's.